A Study Of Military Politics In Turkey(1980-2013)

After the World War I, the Republic Of Turkey was born on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey is an Islamic country with deepest secularization and democratization in the Middle East. Since the foundation of the Republic, Turkish military intervened the state’s politics frequently, so that the politicization of Civil Service was interrupted. The military creates extremely effects on national democratization processes. The paper takes Turkish military politics as research subjects. On analysis of several military affairs and measure to limit military privileges by civil government, it reveals that the influences from Turkish military on national politics is declining and the country’s democratic politics become much more perfect in the background of Justice and Development Party’s ruling.The paper includes three pars: introduction, body text and conclusion.The first part is introduction. It introduces the significance of the topic, the general situation of Turkish military politics from domestic and foreign scholars, the ways and structure of the research and the related concepts.The second part is the main body part of the paper including three chapters. In Chapter One, it reviews the historical tradition of the military politics. There was strong military style in politics during the end of Ottoman Empire and the period of Kemal regime. Since the beginning of Turkish multi-party system, soldiers regarded themselves as the defenders of Kemalism and considered a coup in 1960 and 1971 to overthrow the civil government elected by people. They ensured the continuation of democracy in undemocratic ways. In Chapter Two, it describes general conditions of the Turkish military politics between 1980 and 2002. The thesis divides the period into three parts including the coup in 1980, the period of the military government, the period of the Motherland Party and the period of the modern coup. Chapter Three mainly discusses power struggles and culture differences between the military and civilian government after the Justice and Development Party in office. Civil government weakened the military power of country’s politics by revising the Constitution. The military tried to strengthen its position by coups, but their failure showed the marginalized situation about Turkish military in state’s power.The third part is the conclusion. It points out that Turkish military politics transited from naked violence intervention to manipulation behind the scene through analysis military politics. It is the necessity in Turkish political development. The struggle between military and civil politics represents two opposing ideologies and social elites in secularism and Islamist. It’s an inevitable step in modernization that military politics compromise to civil politics. Turkey’s military politics is typical in post modernization countries. The relationship between civil and military politics can provide important reference for other developing countries.